Some theoretical and technical aspects of gender and social reality in clinical psychoanalysis

Since the social order embodies and authorizes ideals of femininity and masculinity, a psychoanalysis of gender entails decisions as to how social reality figures in the clinical situation. This paper approaches social reality as part of a general problem of neurosis, in which all versions of normality are analyzed as aspects of resistance. What such an approach emphasizes about social ideals is their role in a psychopathology of conformity, which constitutes a stage in the development of neurosis.